What Your Permission Mode Actually Controls for a Workflow
You're running a Claude Code session in Manual permission mode and launch a dynamic workflow that spawns 20 subagents to edit files across the repo.
What mode do those spawned subagents' file edits actually run under?
The correct answer is "acceptEdits — regardless of the session's own permission mode."
Your permission mode controls only the launch prompt that asks
whether to start the workflow at all. Once it's running, the
subagents a workflow spawns always run in acceptEdits mode and
inherit your tool allowlist, regardless of what mode your session is
in — file edits are auto-approved for the whole run, even if you're
sitting in Manual mode watching everything else prompt you
individually. Shell commands, web fetches, and MCP tool calls not
already covered by your allowlist still stop to ask.
The distractors don't match this: the session's Manual mode doesn't
carry over to spawned subagents; nothing about workflows requires
Bypass permissions; and the mode isn't frozen at whatever was active
when the first subagent finished — it's always acceptEdits for
workflow-spawned agents, by design.
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